Place bottle of vodka (Slavic vodkas are best) in the freezer and chill for 24 hours. Pour vodka in small glasses, with a little bite of something on the side.

Ingredients

Instructions:

Place bottle of vodka (Slavic vodkas are best) in the freezer and chill for 24 hours. Pour vodka in small glasses, with a little bite of something on the side.

The Wondrich Take:

Liquor as we know it was invented around the year 1100, in Italy -- then the most advanced nation in Christendom (why is it we suspect the world might be a better place if that were still true?). No matter what anyone says, there's no hard evidence whatsoever for the distillation of alcohol in Europe before that, and precious little for its occurrence elsewhere. It seems to have been "physicians" (don't ask) who were to blame. They took wine, distilled it as best they could, flavored it with "medicinal" herbs, and sweetened the bejeezus out of it. They're still drinking that sort of thing over there. By 1320, Italian merchants were pushing it all over Europe, and anywhere there was wine, folks were starting to make it themselves. But what if you didn't have wine? Precisely. By the early 1400s, the northern belt of Europe was making hooch out of beer -- or at least, the same stuff they were making beer out of. Grain, yeast, water. Wheat being in limited supply and bread being perceived as more useful for sustaining human life than alcohol, the distillers had to work with whatever else was available. In the more moderate climate of the British Isles, that meant barley. In points east, it meant rye; they called that a lot of things, eventually including "vodka" -- "little water." In either case, what came out of the still was a clear, oily pop-skull reeking of raw grain -- nothing like the polished products we know today.

Eventually, the Celts learned to mellow their uisce beatha -- "water of life" -- by aging it in oak barrels. In the East, they took a different tack, filtering their vodka through charcoal. This left a good deal of body, a little flavor, and a lot of kick. In Poland and Russia, they still make vodkas this way. Elsewhere, you're likely to get pure grain alcohol cut with water, a different creature entirely and one that we generally avoid. And as long as we're drinking Slavic vodka, we'll drink it the way the locals do -- straight out of the freezer, in small glasses, with a little bite of something on the side. And preferably in the company of Russians, who'll throw the cap away when they open the bottle and gleefully join you on the night train to Drunkistan.

You would think the hazards and rewards of drinking vodka in the Russian style are obvious. But just to illustrate how far things can go, let us enlist Fred Virski, a Pole who had the misfortune to get himself shanghaied into the Red Army just before Hitler decided to settle Stalin's hash. A few weeks after the German invasion, Virski found himself slugging back vodka shots with a bunch of officers; after they were all lit to a rosy glow, the call went out for a drinking game that traveled under the innocuous name of "cuckoo." The first step involves making sure you've got a loaded pistol in your hand. But here's Virski:

"While they gulped down their drinks, I secretly poured mine over the floor behind me. After a warning, the light went out and immediately as many shots rang out as there were men in the room. The bullets were fired at the ceiling to indicate the beginning of the game. At once the room became silent. All you could hear in the darkness was some furniture being pushed about. This 'silence' lasted about five minutes. Nobody could decide to begin the game. Finally, from the direction of the sideboard, a voice shouted the first 'cu-ckoo.' I felt pretty sure it was the young officer who had first suggested the game. The word was barely out of his mouth when a dozen bullets crashed into the cupboard. In answer, I heard him roar with laughter, promptly followed by the same voice yelling 'cu-ckoo' from another corner of the room. Once more the revolvers opened up and again his laughter rang out. Suddenly 'cu-ckoo' was shouted by someone else, this time right beside me. Instinctively, I pressed myself to the floor. Most of the bullets spattered against the wall above me, but one ricocheted off it and whistled past my ear. I felt instantly sober. Remembering the sideboard -- a solid, heavy piece of furniture whose lower shelves were stacked with bags of flour -- I began crawling in that direction. The game was now at its height, 'cu-ckoos' and bullets flashing from every corner of the room. Reaching the sideboard, I managed to squeeze myself safely behind it. Having made sure that the sacks of flour were properly protecting my body, I carefully stuck out my head and yelled 'cu-ckoo.' The moment I withdrew my head, the sideboard shuddered and splintered from the barrage of bullets. Some of them, missing the sacks and my body, pierced the wood and landed with a dead thud against the wall. No, I thought to myself, I will never play this game again."

All in good fun, but then -- inevitably -- someone got hurt and they had to go back to drinking vodka, until that ran out, whereupon they switched to Eau de Cologne. We don't recommend Eau de Cologne, or cuckoo, for that matter (although we can, kinda, see the appeal).